Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to telestration for remote video collaboration with streaming imagery and is more specifically related to enhancing a remote operator's ability to annotate and interact with streaming imagery in a realistic, yet virtualized manner through simulating movement and reaction of the streaming imagery.
Related Art
Industries that develop, manufacturer, and maintain complex products often find an insufficient number of employees with extensive training and experience to meet demand. This is particularly relevant as businesses become more geographically diverse. It is inefficient (and sometime physically impossible) to deploy an expert “into the field” on every occasion at a moment's notice. Rather, companies typically deploy technicians with relative degrees of experience who collaborate with the expert remotely. For example, a multi-national aerospace company might have local technicians in an Italian production plant conferring with senior designers in the United States regarding the fabrication concerns for a specialized airframe. Similarly, technicians on an ocean oil rig may consult with shore side experts to address problems with specialized drilling machinery. Traditionally, video monitoring, as described in previous art, has been instrumental in achieving this collaboration.
Conventional tele-monitoring (aka teleconferencing) allows real-time audio and video tele-collaboration to improve education, training, and performance in many fields. Current collaboration methods include telestration, which can be performed either locally or remotely to identify regions of interest within the video images. For example, television personalities routinely annotate video of live or replayed video broadcasts to highlight their commentary. Similarly, flight engineers can remotely inspect possible damage to space vehicles using telestrated, high-definition images of the equipment while it is still in orbit. In short, expert know-how can be maintained at a centralized location while being mobilized anywhere at a moment's notice.
Current telestration techniques, as defined in prior art, primarily display freehand and other two-dimensional drawings over a video image or series of images. However, true collaboration is better achieved if the remote expert can demonstrate information through movement and manipulation of the images. In this invention, a computer simulation of the objects within the video images is constructed so that they can be manipulated in a more realistic manner.